Hyypia: Liverpool rotations debate silly

Benitez has been questioned over his decision to leave Fernando Torres out for their 0-0 draw with Birmingham City on Saturday, but Hyppia says: "Everybody knows the manager likes to rotate and he is not going to change his style, and nobody said anything about it when we were winning. Now we have drawn a couple and everyone wants to talk about it.

"That is silly. It is his style and he is not going to change regardless of what anybody says."

Benitez said: "I did not start with Torres because we knew Birmingham would be deep, denying space and very compact. Voronin is a clever player in such circumstances, and Kuyt works very hard.

"We tried with fresh legs, with Fernando. But you could see how many times he was able to get beyond their defence. Never. That is because he is a player that needs space.

"I have four strikers and I need to use all of them. With Kuyt and Voronin they have intelligence to play in difficult, compact areas.

"We knew they would be deep and we would need space for Torres to work in. That was not there, and we knew it.

"When he came on he was never able to get behind their defence, that was always going to be the problem with his style."